


Red & Blue

by queanofswords



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-09
Updated: 2010-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-11 00:42:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queanofswords/pseuds/queanofswords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rory Williams likes Amelia Pond <em>because</em> she's weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red & Blue

**Author's Note:**

> My first Amy &amp; Rory fic! Such fun, too! I just want to hug them, don't you? Written for Challenge No. 1 over at [she_is_to_me](http://community.livejournal.com/she_is_to_me).

The blue crayon is worn down to a nub. Rory picks it out of the precise rainbow laid out on the floor between them and frowns at it. Then he sees the picture that Amelia is drawing and he asks, "Who is that?"

Amelia looks at him cagily, almost as if she's not sure she should answer him.

"That's the Raggedy Doctor," she says at last. Her accent isn't so strong when it's just the two of them coloring or playing games. Rory likes it, though, like he likes her bright hair. She's much more interesting than the other kids at the school. They tease her like they tease him, though with him it's about his worn shirts that he got from an older cousin. They tease Amelia about the _psychiatrist_ and say she's a nutter, and _weird_.

He isn't quite sure what a psychiatrist is at the tender age of nine, but then again, he doesn't pay much attention to what the other children say. He likes that she's weird, because it means she's different, and that's a good thing.

"Who's the Raggedy Doctor?" he asks, genuinely curious, because he's never heard of him before. It's not a character from any of the cartoons he watches, and he is a great fan of everything animated.

Amelia's mouth turns into a frown. She is suspicious. "You really want to know?"

Rory looks at the figure in the blue shirt and brown striped trousers. He's upside down, but he's smiling and holding the hand of a ginger-haired girl in a red coat. Amelia is always wearing red.

"Yeah," he says.

Just like that, the frown on her face blooms into a smile. He can see the gap where she has lost a tooth and the tiny white dots where the new one is coming in.

She tells him about the blue box that crashed into her garden one Easter night, and the ragged, gangly man who'd come out of it, drenched by his swimming pool.

"It was in the library," she tells him sagely.

Rory argues that swimming pools don't go in libraries.

"That's the best place for them," she counters. She's had a lot of time to think about it. "If you want to read by the pool, all you have to do is pick a book, and you're already there."

Then she tells him how the Raggedy Doctor fixed the crack in her wall, and then he went away to fix his ship, the blue police box, but he'd promised he'd come back, so he was coming back. He'd promised.

She shows Rory all of her drawings. It's a wonderful game, though part of him thinks that they're getting a bit _old_ for this. He's nine, nearly ten (his birthday's in three months). But he likes Amelia a lot. She never calls him names, or makes fun of him for his old clothes or his nose. He never makes fun of her for seeing a psychiatrist.

When he dresses in the Raggedy Doctor costume that she designed for him (shirt, trousers and even a tie liberated from his dad's pile of old clothes meant for the church donation box), he _becomes_ the Raggedy Doctor, and she is Amelia Pond and together they fight monsters and save the day.

For a few years, it's great fun and their best game. They play it even after all the boys Rory knows have sworn off the friendship of girls forever because it isn't _cool_ to be friends with girls.

Rory can't imagine Amy (after the second psychiatrist swore he would never see her again, she refused to go by Amelia anymore) as anything but _cool_, even if she does want to be friends with him, Rory Williams, who is so very _un_-cool. But he doesn't mind, because he knows that he's Amy's best friend, and she's his, he doesn't care what Jeff says about it being queer to like girls. Jeff is an idiot.

Besides, if he wasn't friends with Amy anymore, then she wouldn't have any friends. It isn't even because she's not nice—she's very nice, and she's funny and she's a lot smarter than she gives herself credit for. She's just shy around people.

That changes when she realizes that she's beautiful. That was probably his fault.

They are fourteen and sixteen and she's wearing a short skirt and cowgirl boots that she'd badgered her Aunt Sharon into buying for her. She's sitting on a swing and she's going up and up and laughing. She always makes him push her, but he doesn't mind, even though part of him is saying how they're too old for this (or at least, he certainly is). For now, they are laughing and swinging.

"My turn," he says when his arms get tired.

She drags her feet until she comes to a stop and pouts at him. For some reason, Rory just stares at her. The pout becomes a frown as she looks back at him.

"What?"

"N-nothing," he stammers.

"Seriously, what?" Amy presses.

"Nothing," he insists, and his voice cracks a little and he winces.

Amy rolls her eyes. "Oh, _please_. Just tell me."

"You're pretty," he blurts out. He hasn't realized it until just now, somehow. She was just Amy, but now she's beautiful. Her long legs are suddenly _nice_ legs, and her cheeks are flushed.

"I am?" She sounds doubtful.

"Yeah," he replies, even as he wishes he hadn't said anything.

So begins that sly smirk that will plague him and all of Leadworth (later, the Universe) for all of time (and space). "Just pretty or beautiful?"

Rory is incredulous. "Can't you just take a compliment?" he demands.

"What? I just want to know! Are we talking Catherine Zeta-Jones or Drew Barrymore? I don't want to be Drew Barrymore."

"You're Amy Pond," he says, and that's supposed to be another compliment, but Amy rolls her eyes again, just like she always does.

"Boring," she sing-songs. She pulls herself off the swing and hangs by one arm until she almost runs into him. Somehow, she makes it look almost languorous. She tries her first seductive glance on him. It's not very subtle and her hair is a mess from the wind, but Rory is sixteen and doesn't require subtlety.

"Do you fancy me, Rory Williams?" she says in a low, almost mocking tone. Well, it's _Amy_, so she's definitely mocking him. She mocks everything. She hates seriousness in all its forms.

"You're being silly," he says hotly, closing the lid on _that_ particular Pandora's box for now.

Amy's pout returns. "Oh, don't get stroppy. I was just taking the mickey. _Honestly_."

Still, after that, she wears a lot more short skirts (which her Aunt Sharon _hates_, which makes her wear them more). Rory doesn't mind them.

When he goes through his things before going away to university, he finds the tie that he always wore when they played Raggedy Doctor. Even though he is _far_ too old for that now, when he goes around to Amy's house for one final evening sitting up under the stars in her garden, he brings it with him. Part of him considered wearing it, but he decided against it. (After the fourth psychiatrist, Amy had vengefully declared that she never wanted to speak about the Raggedy Doctor again. Rory has taken this vow more seriously than any other in his young life.)

While they are lying in the cold damp grass, he pulls the rolled up tie from his pocket and hands it to her.

She sits up and stares at it. Rory's not sure if she's angry or simply shocked, but her eyes are wide as she stares at the tie and then at him.

"I found it," he says, "in my closet. I thought you might want to hold onto it." She's still staring at him, and his heart breaks a little bit, because she looks so _frightened_. "Just until I come back," he says.

Amy looks away from him. She's crying silently. He feels like such an idiot.

"Hey!" He touches her cheek with his hand. "Amy..."

"People always say that," she whispers. Her eyes open and she's glaring ferociously at him. "And then they disappear."

He knows how this part of the story goes. The Raggedy Doctor says, "Do I look like people?"

Rory Williams says, "You have my phone number. I have my car. If you want to talk to me, _ever_, you call me, and I'll come. I'll drive all night if I have to. I pro—"

"Don't," Amy hisses. "Don't you dare promise."

Rory can't help but promise, but if she doesn't want to hear it, fine. He puts the tie in her hand and closes her fingers around it and then he kisses her gently on the lips. He's never done that before. When he pulls away, Amy's eyes are wide, but she's stopped crying. They hold hands out there on the cold, wet ground until the stars are all out and glittering.


End file.
